The following article was submitted by Meredith Gadzinski, an Adult Services Librarian at the Manitowoc Public Library.
I’m really excited to share some of the new things we have done in our local history collection at MPL with you!
First of all, the newspaper-on-microfilm drawers have been re-organized and re-labeled. The labels are bigger and display the years of the newspapers. And if they are in a language other than English that is noted on the labels, as well. These small changes make it easier to browse the newspapers on microfilm and find what years and papers you’re interested in using for your research.
Secondly, in addition to our “Buildings Have a History” pamphlet, a “Genealogy Help at MPL” pamphlet has been created to help you to get your researching started.
However, the most exciting part of this update is being able to pass along that the Library has purchased a new ScanPro 3500 microfilm machine thanks to the support and generosity of the Manitowoc Public Library Foundation!
Meredith Gadzinski
So, what is a microfilm machine? Simply put, it’s a machine that reads microfilm. Pretty straightforward, right? We use microfilm to preserve newspapers at MPL. We have several local history resources on microfilm. There are newspapers dating back as early as 1854, Census records, Index to Manitowoc County Court Records, and the Wisconsin Necrology. To check out a full list everything we have available on microfilm, please stop by the Manitowoc Collection at MPL.
Now, back to our new microfilm machine! The ScanPro 3500 is all ready for use. Library Desk Staff will need to log you into the computer and can help you to get started on the machine. The camera on this machine is 26 megapixels with a large 6.6-megapixel image sensor. For those of you—like me—who don’t know offhand what’s meant when people reference a 26-megapixel camera, it means that the image quality of the articles you are researching is the best I personally have witnessed with a microfilm machine—and I’ve been using these kinds of machines for over twenty years! Some of this depends on the quality of the newspaper that’s been scanned, but speaking from personal experience, it’s quite remarkable how clear and crisp the images of the newspapers really are with this new machine.
Another small, but important improvement is that the microfilm being viewed always comes into clear focus once you give it a moment to adjust. You don’t even need to adjust it as you move the microfilm reel forward or backward. Just wait a minute and the machine automatically recalibrates to the new page of the newspaper. Honestly, pressing auto-adjust is enough to get the images to the best brightness and contrast.
Another exciting feature of the ScanPro 3500, is that it can word search the page that’s in front of you. This will be a big time saving tool for anyone who doesn’t have a date for the article or obituary that they’re hoping to find. This rings especially true for the papers we have on microfilm from the early-1900s. The newspapers were organized differently during that era and often times local news or briefs and obituaries often were placed right alongside the other local briefs in the same section in very, very tiny print.
So, instead of having to comb through everything looking for that single sentence regarding your great-great uncle who passed-away, you can just click on “Word Search” and type-in his name. If that name is there in print, it should be highlighted in the text after the search. If nothing pops up, you can move to the next page of the paper and do the word search again. Once you find what you’re looking for, you can print or save an image of the article or obituary. This machine is really very easy to use, so there’s no reason to be intimidated by it.
A new microfilm machine may not be the flashiest thing at the library, but it really is an important, regularly-used tool. Without these machines, researching local history topics or your family history would be next to impossible. A huge thank you goes out to the Manitowoc Public Library Foundation for their support in purchasing this fantastic tool for our community.
